39 Entrepreneurship Abroad: Cultural and International Perspectives and Challeng
39 Entrepreneurship Abroad: Cultural and International Perspectives and Challenges
Betty Tsakarestou
Journalists, legacy media, digital publishers and platforms, communicators, branded content creators, and social innovators have reinvented the profession by creating and testing new business models as niche and specialized journalism startups. In so doing, they have offered novel news experiences and publishing environments, served underserved communities, empowered contributors to build their own digital brands, offered more relevant content to their communities, and explored new opportunities for audience engagement. They have advanced new storytelling approaches with the help of big data; have integrated immersive virtual reality and Internet of Things (IoT) technology; and have designed journalistic new products and services related to key questions and challenges such as fact checking for non-specialists, filter bubbles, and the impact of personalization of the Internet.
While in many European countries legacy newsrooms are still laying off journalists, online publishers and some legacy media companies are revamping for growth and diversifying their strategies by investing in digital startups according to a Financial Times analysis.[1]
“Following the examples of Time Warner and Comcast, European companies have sought to structure their venture arms like independent funds – with partners judged on the financial value of the portfolio companies, rather than on looser strategic value to the parent company.”
At the same time, across Europe, journalism startups are creating the first “pockets of innovation” by introducing alternative business models, getting public attention, and raising or crowd-sourcing funds.
Take a first glimpse of some notable cases:
In Germany, Republik,[2] an open-source cooperative digital magazine to be launched in January 2018, reclaims the role of journalism to reinforce Democracy. Republik co-founder Christof Moser, a journalist and professor, succeeded in raising $2 million.[3]
Innovative Journalism Startups from Netherlands[4] are focusing on quality journalism. Blendle employs an “iTunes” model for news.[5] De Correspondent[6] is getting ready for its U.S. presence while more media startups are taking tech press influencer Charmaine Li’s attention: Piano Media in Austria, PressPad in Krakow, Sellfy in Riga/ Latvia, Movellas in Copenhagen and London, Ghost, ShareWall, ReadWave, and Reedsy in London, Liberio in Berlin. In Athens, Press Project [7] is one of the few independent investigative journalism and data reporting startups that fill the vacuum of failing legacy media.
When you look at the global heat maps of the emerging dynamic startup ecosystem, innovation starts to be geographically and culturally diverse and unevenly distributed. We can get an overview and a very informed perspective of the emerging and dynamic startup ecosystems all over the world through the lens of Startup Genome the Global Startup Ecosy